Klarinet Archive - Posting 000042.txt from 2003/06

From: Oliver Seely <oseely@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Re: Copyright, etc.
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 23:22:37 -0400

Copyright issues and the murkiness of "what I can do legally" is one of the
principal reasons I began to offer public domain scores and MIDI files on
my Web site. It is my own (admittedly) Quixotic quest to treat information
as knowledge rather than as commodity.

From time to time I do searches on the subject of copyright and what
others are doing and a year ago or so I came upon http://cpdl.org/ which is
the Choral Music Public Domain Library. These folks seem to be about as
militant as I am as regards making information in the public domain freely
available to all. Michael Hart who founded project Gutenberg,
http://promo.net/pg/index.html is of much the same mind.

Speaking only for myself, if I were to do a concert for pay, I'd use the
commercial version of the piece I was playing or one I had created myself
if the music had passed into the public domain. For rehearsals and
non-profit concerts I don't let the thought of the sudden arrival of the
copyright shock troops or the virtue and vice police peaking over my
shoulder ever bother me. I make copies as necessary to play the music.

My web page for you newcomers is
http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/clarmusi/clarmusi.htm

Oliver

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